I’ll Make Me a World

Posted by on Jan 24, 2013 in dish | 0 comments One of my father’s favorite books is James Weldon Johnson’s poetry collection God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. The whole collection is gorgeous, a tour-de-force of imagery, theology, and culture. Johnson is better known for “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” adopted by the NAACP as the “Negro National Anthem,” but Daddy’s favorite and...
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Newbery Project: 1920s

Posted by on Apr 13, 2012 in dish | 0 comments Some time back, I began a project to read all of the books that have been awarded the Newbery Medal. After scanning the list of winners, I realized that I’d only read a dozen or so of the books, the earliest of which was written in 1949 (Marguerite Henry’s King of the Wind). So delving into the list at the beginning seemed a good way to tackle it. Unfortunately, a couple of...
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Fifteen Cool Authors

Posted by on Jan 20, 2012 in dish | 0 comments I don’t know how I missed this game on Facebook, but thanks to a Jaunty Quills post from my dear friend Nancy Robards Thompson, I’m stealing it. The Rules: list fifteen authors (poets included) who have influenced you and made an impression. Don’t take too long to think about it. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. Dr. Seuss – This man...
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Odd Couplings, Book Version

Posted by on Jan 12, 2012 in dish | 0 comments This post at Bookriot is one of the best things I’ve read in a while. It’s a listing of the Top Ten Made-Up Literary Couples, with explanations of why the two belong together. With pairings like Jane Eyre/Rhett Butler, Katniss Everdeen/Aragorn, and Bella Swan/Lestat, how can you miss?   Reading a post like this makes you think of the possibilities. How about these?   Guy Montag and...
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Readin’ and Writin’

Posted by on Jul 30, 2011 in dish | 0 comments One thing about summer that I love is the time to catch up on reading. During the school year, most of the reading I’m doing is either keeping up with (or ahead of) my students, which often crowds out any meaningful time to read what I want to read. As a result, I’m usually woefully behind on the new hot books. It takes me forever to get to the old hot books—for instance, I just finally read...
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